The music has a tidal drag, which is also the pull or drag of teasing.

L’Ésprit Créole

Cedric Watson grew up in Texas, developed an early love of Cajun and Zydeco music, and made his way to the city of Lafayette, Louisiana, wellspring of Cajun culture, where he fed himself through the guts of several groups and came out with one of his own. He has a smart grasp of Créole accordion and fiddle, and he sings. "[A]ll in French," asserts his biography, although whether this is meant as a celebration of his talents or as a warning to listeners who might react to an album called L’Ésprit Créole with shouts of, "I thought this shit was going to be in English," I'm not sure.

On this album he acknowledges his home state with "J’suis parti au Texas", a skiffling autobiographical piece. The singer's delivery makes it sound at times like a Créole patter song, adapted from a tune recorded in the 1930s by Alan Lomax. Modern folk musicians picking up old sources and revitalising them is nothing new, but Watson's way of doing it is vivid. The living musicians swing into the songs with joy, and the modern interpretive touches contribute to the traditional music without asserting themselves at its expense. The Cajun accordion sits around the lilt of "C'est la Vie"'s reggae beat like a natural parentheses, and the meaning of the song's vocal refrain, c'est la vie, is supported by the Caribbean bob that lazes along like a flow of relaxed shrugs. In pop culture the accordion is a goofy instrument -- the poster for the Accordion King on the back of the son's bedroom door in Fargo is a sight gag at the character's expense -- but in the face of an album like L’Ésprit Créole that prejudice would be difficult to sustain. You would have to lie to yourself; "No, no, really, this is boring, I'm hating it …"

In a few spots the modern introductions are not successful. The electric jazz guitar in "Le Sud de la Louisiane" seems wan next to the stab of the accordion. In a different setting it would sound laid-back, part of the scenery. But here, with the more declarative stamp of the other instruments around it, the sleek, quiet chords seem to be apologizing for their existence. The fact that the guitar has its own near-solo moment while the other instruments retreat to accommodate it suggests a rare species that needs to be protected in order to flourish.

This is unfortunate. Part of the thrill of this Créole music comes from its brashness, its rude bold swing, the swift pendulum rhythm that steps forward for an instant as if it's about to grab hold of you, then steps back, retreating, winking, daring you to come after it. The music has a tidal drag, which is also the pull or drag of teasing, and of the charmer's grin: the expression that lets you know how clever it is, and offers to let you come closer. But what will the charmer do if you take up the offer? Giving in to this music feels like a pleasurable act of daring. Once you launch yourself, you're asking to be caught.

White Hills epic '80s callback
Stop Mute Defeat is a determined march against encroaching imperial darkness; their eyes boring into the shadows for danger but they're aware that blinding lights can kill and distort truth. From "Overlord's" dark stomp casting nets for totalitarian warnings to "Attack Mode", which roars in with the tribal certainty that we can survive the madness if we keep our wits, the record is a true and timely win for Dave W. and Ego Sensation. Martin Bisi and the poster band's mysterious but relevant cool make a great team and deliver one of their least psych yet most mind destroying records to date. Much like the first time you heard Joy Division or early Pigface, for example, you'll experience being startled at first before becoming addicted to the band's unique microcosm of dystopia that is simultaneously corrupting and seducing your ears. - Morgan Y. Evans

The year in song reflected the state of the world around us. Here are the 70 songs that spoke to us this year.

70. The Horrors - "Machine"

On their fifth album V, the Horrors expand on the bright, psychedelic territory they explored with Luminous, anchoring the ten new tracks with retro synths and guitar fuzz freakouts. "Machine" is the delicious outlier and the most vitriolic cut on the record, with Faris Badwan belting out accusations to the song's subject, who may even be us. The concept of alienation is nothing new, but here the Brits incorporate a beautiful metaphor of an insect trapped in amber as an illustration of the human caught within modernity. Whether our trappings are technological, psychological, or something else entirely makes the statement all the more chilling. - Tristan Kneschke

"...when the history books get written about this era, they'll show that the music community recognized the potential impacts and were strong leaders." An interview with Kevin Erickson of Future of Music Coalition.

Last week, the musician Phil Elverum, a.k.a. Mount Eerie, celebrated the fact that his album A Crow Looked at Me had been ranked #3 on the New York Times' Best of 2017 list. You might expect that high praise from the prestigious newspaper would result in a significant spike in album sales. In a tweet, Elverum divulged that since making the list, he'd sold…six. Six copies.

Under the lens of cultural and historical context, as well as understanding the reflective nature of popular culture, it's hard not to read this film as a cautionary tale about the limitations of isolationism.

I recently spoke to a class full of students about Plato's "Allegory of the Cave". Actually, I mentioned Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" by prefacing that I understood the likelihood that no one had read it. Fortunately, two students had, which brought mild temporary relief. In an effort to close the gap of understanding (perhaps more a canyon or uncanny valley) I made the popular quick comparison between Plato's often cited work and the Wachowski siblings' cinema spectacle, The Matrix. What I didn't anticipate in that moment was complete and utter dissociation observable in collective wide-eyed stares. Example by comparison lost. Not a single student in a class of undergraduates had partaken of The Matrix in all its Dystopic future shock and CGI kung fu technobabble philosophy. My muted response in that moment: Whoa!

Allen Ginsberg and Robert Lowell at St. Mark's Church in New York City, 23 February 1977

Scholar Christopher Grobe crafts a series of individually satisfying case studies, then shows the strong threads between confessional poetry, performance art, and reality television, with stops along the way.

Tracing a thread from Robert Lowell to reality TV seems like an ominous task, and it is one that Christopher Grobe tackles by laying out several intertwining threads. The history of an idea, like confession, is only linear when we want to create a sensible structure, the "one damn thing after the next" that is the standing critique of creating historical accounts. The organization Grobe employs helps sensemaking.